42 years later and they NOW forgive him? ...Vatican forgives John Lennon for Jesus remark
11/22/2008 3:00 PM, Reuters
http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/61898954
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) The Vatican's newspaper has finally forgiven John Lennon for declaring that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, calling the remark a "boast" by a young man grappling with sudden fame.
The comment by Lennon to a London newspaper in 1966 infuriated Christians, particularly in the United States, some of whom burned Beatles' albums in huge pyres.
But time apparently heals all wounds.
<snip>"The fact remains that 38 years after breaking up, the songs of the Lennon-McCartney brand have shown an extraordinary resistance to the passage of time, becoming a source of inspiration for more than one generation of pop musicians," it said.
38 years later after breaking up... hard to "imagine" (but it's easy if you try) and their music just still rocks on. It wasn't just Lennon-McCartney either, Harrison and Starr/Starkey had individually & collectively made their significant contributions to the Beatles.
Still that "we're more popular than Jesus" remark today wouldn't have caused as much ire except among "radical" fundamentalists. Anyway it was a joke, tongue in cheek remark about their fame that just was at the time unlike any ever seen (except of course by Elvis-mania).
I still find it sad that those blokes got thoroughly ripped off by the lack of royalties from merchandising, concerts and record sales when they hit the states. To my understanding they received a pithy sum for their concerts and record sales and just about nothing from all the Beatle-mania merchandising. There SHOULD'VE been a law back then.